MAD DASH

Germans had set up in a house and were picking off American soldiers on a January day in 1945 when Norman Sokay got his assignment: Take out the house.

His Army squadron directed fire into the windows, and Sokay dashed across an open field, dodging bullets, until he was at the house. If he’d had a grenade, he might have tossed it in the window, but he didn’t, so in German he told the men inside to surrender.

They did.

Out walked 15 Germans, including a lieutenant and an older man who had an Iron Cross from fighting in World War I. The Americans took them into custody.

Then Sokay noticed smoke coming from the basement. He went down and pulled out a U.S. soldier who had been wounded and captured.

For his actions that day, Sokay received the Bronze Star.

Sokay also fought in the Battle of the Bulge, where he received a Purple Heart for frostbite wounds to his feet. It was so cold, he said, that a couple of soldiers shot themselves in the leg just to get out of there.

Gen. George Patton put a stop to that by telling the troops that the next soldier with a self-inflicted gunshot wound would be put in front of a firing squad, he said.